Use an electronic mailing list to communicate with your constituents and staff members through announcements as well as through discussions and collaboration. Every DCN SimpleSite has the option to use a built-in form for people to subscribe to the mailing list. They can also use the form to unsubscribe (remove themselves from the list). With a little extra work, the standard sign-up form can be modified to add some additional information beyond email information (see http://www.dhspta.org/pta/listserver/dhs2011 as an example).
Very large lists can be used with this service; some of the organizations on DCN have more than 1000 subscribers. Pre-existing electronic mailing lists can be added as a group and a list of subscribers can also be exported from Mailman into a file such as a spreadsheet.

Courtesy dial-up accounts, at the end of the project period, must usually be converted to regular dialups with a monthly fee paid to Omsoft. The nonprofit DCN dialup account is provided for a discounted monthly charge and some extras.